Wife of Doctor who died in hospital fire----‘My husband was assassinated, I want justice’

As the Oguntuase family in Akure, Ondo State, continues to mourn the gruesome death of foremost Pediatrician, Dr. David Oguntuase, his wife, Ifeyinwa, has cried out to security agencies to help find his killers.

Dr. Oguntuase who would have been 54 in January, died in his private clinic on Christmas Eve in a mysterious fire incident suspected by his family to be the handiwork of assassins.

Ifeyinwa, a social worker also at the Federal Medical Centre, Owo, told our correspondent that she received his last phone call at about 6.42pm on that Wednesday, instructing her on the need to shop for some basic provisions before dark because of the holiday season.

According to Punch, she said her husband left home in the evening without his car which was under repair at a mechanic workshop, and did not return home before the family went to bed.

According to her, because of the nature of his job as a medical doctor, he often kept late nights and sometimes didn’t return home if he had a case at the hospital. She, however, noted that he usually called to notify her whenever he planned to come home late.

She noted that her husband was earlier robbed of his phones and other valuables the previous Saturday in the same area where his clinic was located.

Ifeyinwa recounted the travails of her husband at the FMC as he was earlier interrogated by the police on trumped up allegations of plotting with others to assassinate the Chief Medical Director.

Flanked by her three children, Ifedayo, 18; Temitope, 14 and Oluwatoyin, 11, at their home at Ijapo Estate, she asserted that her husband of 20 years did not die in a fire accident.

“For all I know, my husband was gruesomely murdered and I want justice for him,” she said.

She, however, could not explain why her husband was alone at the hospital at the time of the incident, a question which had been on the lips of many residents in the area.

“My husband was not a careless person; he was very meticulous and knew how to put things in their place. He was not lazy.

“He was simple and forthright. He used his clinic for charity. The clinic did not bring money home; he used his salary to pay his workers. He was kind-hearted and selfless,” she said.

Asked if she believed the police could find the killers, she said, 

“I know they (police) can do something if they want to. They should find the killers at least to prove my confidence in them.”